Designer Furniture and Mirrors by Philippe Starck

Meet The Designer | Philippe Starck

Philippe Starck is an iconic French architect and product designer best known for his refurbishment of the Élysée Palace in Paris and his highly stylised sculptural aesthetic which blurs the boundaries between organic and industrial style. Collaborating with Kartell, his most iconic designs include the Ghost Chair and Masters Chair which drew inspiration from three of the most iconic designers of the 20th century - Arne Jacobsen, Eero Saarinen and Charles Eames.

"Subversive, ethical, ecological, political and humorous," is how Philippe Starck sees himself as a designer. Philippe's global fame and poetic genius and tireless passion for inventiveness has made him one of the most coveted French designers in the world. Born in 1949, he spent his early childhood sketching designs alongside his aeronautic engineer father and studied in his teens at the École Nissim de Camondo, Paris before starting his own design company which produced inflatable objects in 1969.

After designing nightclub interiors for Paris nightclubs La Main Bleue and Les Bains-Douches, Philippe Starck started to make a name for himself in the 1970s before gaining international acclaim when he was commissioned to refurbish the private apartments in Élysée Palace by French President François Mitterrand in 1983. Parallel to his interior design career, Starck has become renowned in the industry for his post-modern furniture designs. Starck’s Masters Chair for Italian furniture brand Kartell was honoured the prestigious Good Design Award 2010 and Red Dot Design Award 2013 and his iconic Kartell Louis Ghost Chair is considered as one of the most daring examples of single mould injected polycarbonate in the world.